Giovanni Picchi was an organist and composer active in Venice in
the early seventeenth century. Biographical details of his life
are sketchy, but the surviving evidence indicates a fairly active
musical career, centered principally around two institutions, Santa
Maria Gloriosa dei Frari and the Scuola di San Rocco.

Picchi appears to have been born around 1572. He may have been
appointed organist at the Frari as early as 1593, but the earliest
specific mention of Picchi dates from the year 1600, when he appears
to have been portrayed on the title page of Fabritio Caroso´s
Nobiltà di Dame. In this dance tutor, Picchi appears
holding a lute, with the name "Picchi" below the portrait.

In February of 1607, Picchi unsuccessfully applied for the position
of organist at the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista.

In 1612, Picchi was investigated by the Provveditori sopra monasteri
on charges that he had been teaching organ, voice, violin, and viol
at the convent of Spirito Santo without a license. In April of the
same year, he auditioned for the position of organist at San Rocco,
losing to Giovanni Grillo.

In March of 1623, after the death of Grillo, Picchi finally won
the post of organist at San Rocco, for which he had unsuccessfully
applied in 1612.

In 1624, Picchi unsuccessfully applied for the position of second
organist at San Marco.

Picchi continued to work as organist at San Rocco and the Frari
until late in his life. In 1641, he began sending a substitute to
San Rocco, probably due to illness, and he died at the age of
seventy-one years on 19 May 1643.

Picchi's extant works can be divided into three categories: keyboard
works, instrumental canzonas, and a single vocal composition.